Incredible tale of American college admissions scandal now a Netflix documentary
Lori Loughlin, left and Felicity Huffman, right, were two of the high profile people caught up in the college admissions scandal
A college admission scandal that saw actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin mired in controversy is the subject of the latest explosive documentary from Netflix.
is made by the director of and the producer of and uses a combination of interviews and reconstructions of FBI wiretaps to tell an incredible story.
Last year, actress Lori Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, to five months for paying half a million dollars (€420k) in bribes to get their two daughters into the prestigious University of Southern California as rowing recruits. Loughlin and Giannulli had insisted for more than a year that they believed their payments were “legitimate donations”.
actress Felicity Huffman served nearly two weeks behind bars in 2019 after she admitted to paying $15,000 (€12.6k) to have someone correct her daughter’s entrance exam answers.
They were among nearly 30 prominent parents to plead guilty in the case, which federal prosecutors dubbed 'Operation Varsity Blues'.
The documentary promises to go beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by former college counsellor and author of self-help books for college admission Rick Singer, the man at the centre of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged.
Using an innovative combination of interviews and narrative recreations of the FBI’s wiretapped conversations between Singer and his clients, Operation Varsity Blues offers a rare glimpse into the enigmatic figure behind a scheme that exposed the lengths wealthy families would go to for admission into elite colleges.
The high-profile scandal angered a nation already grappling with the effects of widespread inequality.
